England ahead in South Africa

I don't know what is going on with the England Cricket Team at the moment but it seems that whatever we do seems to come out well in the end, even if we do wait until the last moment to save the test match with our last batsmen.

3 times in the last few months we have drawn a test match where we are 9 wickets down in our second innings and every single time it has looked like we will get the draw quite comfortably before a late collapse has let the opposition in with a chance to win the test match and bowl England out, however all 3 times we have managed to bat out the matches with people such as Monty Panesar and Graham Onions doing the business.

The only problem with this is that it always seems as if our batsmen have it comfortably sewn up and then there is always a collapse. Last match Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood batted for between 4 and 5 hours each but then fell with about an hour to go leaving the rest to try and save the match. With Matt Prior and Stuart Broad both falling quite cheaply it was eventually left to Graham Onions and Graeme Swann to bat out the final part of the game and keep England 1-0 up in the series.

So with just the 1 Test match left, which starts this Thursday, the opportunity is there for England to win the series in South Africa if they can avoid defeat in the last match something that will be a huge achievement to this England side because at the start of the tour England where given very slim hopes of actually getting a positive result against a South Africa side that includes Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and AB De Villiers.

Elsewhere there has been a Tri-Nations Series between India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and without a doubt the 2 best teams have made the final as Sri Lanka will face India in the end of series contest tomorrow. It has been a good close tournament though especially as quite a lot of times Bangladesh have managed to match the other 2 teams right to the wire even if they couldn't get a win out of it. This only shows that the state of cricket is getting better and the more competitions that we have where fringe teams are allowed to play against the top teams then they are only going to improve.

So with a week of cricket ahead of us we will finally see if England can get the series win out in South Africa, we will see who is the better One Day International Team out of Sri Lanka and India and there is also the 3rd test between Australia and Pakistan to look forward to as well.